Summer Paradise
by aedy
Summary: They meet one summer and then they have to say goodbye. Puck was never able to let go of the memories.


**_A/N: I was listening to "Summer Paradise" by Simple Plan today and I got the idea for this fan fiction. The words in Italic are flashbacks. I didn't put the lyrics of the song in the story._**

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><p><em>Puck looked down to the fading lights of Los Angeles from the plane's window. When summer had started he hadn't even wanted to go visit his aunt,. For the first week, he didn't even go the beach but now that it was over, that he was on a plane back to a place he truly hated, he felt like he would have done anything to be able to go back at the beginning of the summer. <em>

_He wanted to meet Kurt all over again, spending the days with him on the little beach behind Kurt's house that Puck had found by accident. But he was stuck on that plane going back to Lima, Ohio, while Kurt was staying at Los Angeles. He wondered if they would ever meet again even though he was sure that Kurt was going to forget him quickly. After all, his home was LA not stupid Lima in stupid Ohio. _

"Welcome to Los Angeles, thank you for flying with us."

When the metallic voice faded away Puck turned on his phone and quickly got up from his seat retrieving his bag and waiting to get down from the plane. At twenty-one, Puck was on his way to success. He had always been told that only one in a million actually made it and he was going to be that one person.

He smiled at the hostess while he was getting off the plane and then he adjusted his duffle bag on his shoulder. He pulled his phone out from the pocket of his worn out jeans and checked the calls. There were at least five missed calls from Finn, his best friend, and a dozen from his mother. He rolled his eyes before deciding that he wasn't going to deal with all that until he was in his house.

His manger had found him a little house where he could stay while he was recording his album and while part of Puck was excited about finally getting his dream come true, there was another part of him, the bigger one, that was thinking about Kurt and about being sixteen and in what he was pretty sure was love, in that same city.

He retrieved his luggage and managed to get a taxi that would take him to his home. He closed his eyes not wanting to look at the city outside the window.

"_I mean, what do you do where you live?" Kurt laughed grabbing Puck's hand and dragging him towards the ocean. "You tell me that you're a jock, but if you just want to have fun, then what do you do?" _

_Kurt turned around then, looking at Puck from over his shoulder. His blazing blue eyes were sparkling with amusement and his cherry lips were curved into a smile. His brown locks kept falling in his eyes and he kept blowing them away and Puck kept feeling something stirring inside him, something he didn't know how to define._

_He had always liked boys as much as girls, sometimes even more, but this felt different like it could grow to become something more important than just a hook-up or a summer fling. Back in Lima, he was a stud with the ladies and kept the boys to dirty alleys because it wasn't safe being yourself in that city. But seeing Kurt here, so free and happy, was making him feel like this was where he was supposed to stay, where he could have the chance of really being himself._

"_I have the fight club," he said, letting Kurt dragging him towards the shore. _

"_Really?" Kurt scrunched up his nose and shook his head. "That's so… so… I don't know, so predictable?" he wondered and then shrugged. "If you lived here, we would have tones of things to do. My uncle owns a club on the Sunset Boulevard and he'd let us get in even though we're only sixteen." He stopped walking when they reached the sand where the first waves of the ocean arrived. _

"_Tell me more," Puck found himself saying. He smiled at Kurt, marveling at how the sunset painted Kurt's usually pale skin with orange and red, a little bit of blue. "If we both lived here, then…"_

"_Then I'd drive you around. Under the palms in the morning, and down Sunset Strip at night. We would walk down the Walk of Fame and look at all the stars." Kurt laughed then. "We would play 'spot the celebrity' and we would go swim at midnight." _

_Puck unconsciously tightened his hold around Kurt's hand, taking a step forward. _

"_We would never say goodbye," Kurt added quietly. _

People almost never considered being a musician actual work, but Puck disagreed with that wholeheartedly. It was November and he had been in Los Angeles close to six months now and he was tired. He was closed up in the studio almost all day writing and then there was the recording and then the sound engineer would tell him that he sucked and that he had to start over and he always did because he really wanted to make it.

This wasn't a dream anymore. It had become pretty much all his life and he didn't even care anymore that his social life was nonexistent.

He tightened his jacket around him because it had started raining and he was freezing. He had this routine of always walking back home, sometimes going down to the beach for a while before heading to his house. He kept telling himself that he wasn't hoping Kurt would turn out on that same spot where they had met.

After the first month back in the city, he had actually mastered up enough courage to go to Kurt's old house hoping he'd find Burt Hummel so he could ask where Kurt was, but he had found a new family living there.

He ran all the way home, hoping that he wouldn't catch a cold.

"_This is so cheesy," Kurt said, laughing but tightening his hold around Puck's shoulders. Puck was too busy kissing his way up Kurt's neck to answer with anything more than a "huh." _

"_I will get sand everywhere and I keep thinking that a really big wave will crush on us and kill us."_

_Puck gave up on the kissing and laughed against Kurt's neck, his hands tightening their hold around Kurt's hips. He turned his head to the side peering up at Kurt who was staring up at the night sky. _

"_I thought it was romantic."_

"_I don't know. It's like those people having sex in a field. What if something gets in your underwear? Or in your hair? It's disgusting. I would never have a picnic or do any of those things."_

"_You're seriously hard work, did you know that?"_

_Kurt nodded finally turning around to look at his friend, boyfriend, summer fling… he didn't know how to describe Puck, he only knew that he wished summer would never end. _

"_But I'm totally worth it," he said, confidently._

"_Totally," Puck whispered against his lips. He trailed one hand up and down Kurt's arm until finally, he entwined their fingers together. "Do you want to go somewhere else?"_

_Kurt shook his head, grinning. "You're worth getting sand in my underwear." _

"There are going to be questions," Al, Puck's manager said, fixing Puck with a serious gaze. "If you have a girlfriend, who inspires your music, those kind of stuff." He shrugged and then pointed a finger right at Puck. "I want to know what you're going to answer."

Puck had thought long about how he was going to do this. If there was one thing Los Angeles was for him, was a place where he could be himself and he wanted to keep it that way. So he shrugged, looking right back at Al. "I'm going to say that I don't have a girlfriend and that I'm not interested in one. If they ask me why, I will tell them that I like boys more. As for what inspires my music, is something private that I don't like to share."

Al didn't answer and didn't stop staring at Puck, careful of hiding his reaction to Puck's answers. Finally, after a few minutes, he nodded and smiled. "That was what I wanted to hear. Remember, this is a cruel world and if you gave them even just one chance of finding out something about you that you don't want to discuss, you will never leave it down. Be straightforward and you won't regret it."

Puck nodded looking down at the CD he was holding. He couldn't help but smile and feel proud of himself. His big chance, and he was making the best of it.

"_Shit. Shit." _

_Puck opened his eyes slowly squeezing them shut again when a ray of sunshine hit him right in the face. _

"_Damn." _

_He turned his head to the side and opened one eye finding Kurt trying to get back in his jeans and muttering under his breath. _

"_What's wrong?" _

"_I was supposed to be home hours ago. My dad won't be happy about this."_

_Puck laughed and got a glare sent his way. _

"_I'm glad you find it amusing."_

"_C'mon Kurt. This is your reaction every time." _

"_Well, it's not my fault you make me loose track of time." He sat down on the edge of the bed and started putting on his shoes but Puck pulled himself up, reaching out and grabbing Kurt's Converse sending it flying across the room. _

"_What…"_

"_Your father is out of town," he said, amused. Kurt frowned for a moment and then sighed. "So, you're totally overreacting." _

"_I forgot." He didn't waste any time and kicked off the one shoe he had managed to put on and then got up again so he could slid his jeans off again. _

"_Good thing I remember this stuff." _

"_Yeah it is." As soon as he was out of his jeans and t-shirt, Kurt got on the bed and laid down next to Puck, grabbing his hands and entwining their fingers. "Have I ever told you that this is nice?" _

"_What? Having sex first thing in the morning."_

"_That too," Kurt replied, without missing a beat. "But I actually meant waking up together. I never did that before."_

"_That's because you never had sex before I came along," Puck told him smugly. _

_Kurt rolled his eyes pushing him until he was lying on his back before straddling him. "You're always so gross."_

"_You love it," Puck told him. He let his hands rest on Kurt's slender hips, pushing up a little. When Kurt put his hands on his pectorals and pushed down, he had to bit back a moan._

"_Yeah, I do." _

Puck had never been one for romance, you could ask any of the girls from his high school and you could ask Kurt. So he had never thought much about the difference between having sex just because you were horny and having sex with someone you actually really really liked. The concept of being in love with someone so much that after years you still remember conversations and moments, and smells and tastes and evenings spent together, was furthermore unknown. He understood all that when he met Kurt. Three months spent together and a lifetime of memories.

There were times when he wondered how much was real and how much he had made up over the course of the years.

"_Your dad is scary," Puck said, laughing._

_Kurt shrugged. "I don't know. People keep telling me that but for me it's just dad."_

"_He really loves you," Puck added quietly. He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans looking towards the ocean. He had never seen the ocean or the sea before coming to LA and now he couldn't imagine himself living anywhere else._

"_Yeah." Kurt looked at him feeling strangely nervous. "Ever since my mom died, he's been all I had and I was all he had. We're pretty close. There was a time when I thought we would never have anything in common because he was so straight and I was so gay. But it all worked out in the end." He smiled up at Puck and unconsciously moistened his lips. "When I came out it was okay." _

"_I'm happy. If I came out to my mom she would have fit." He trailed off for a moment and then laughed. "Well maybe she would just ask for a nice Jewish boy instead of a girl."_

"_Will you ever? Come out I mean." _

_Puck nodded glancing at Kurt briefly. "Yeah. When I'm ready."_

"_I hope it will work out." Kurt bit on his lower lip stealing glances at Puck and then looking back towards the house hoping that his dad was still too busy with the barbeque to notice they had sneaked out. _

_Then, suddenly, he felt fingers sliding through his and he looked up finding Puck standing closer than he had expected._

_Puck had never felt that nervous about kissing someone, not even the first time he had kissed another guy. He cupped Kurt's cheek with his free hand and only hesitated a moment before closing the distance between them. He felt Kurt grabbing his shirt in his hand, twisting the soft material of it and Puck felt such a high from the mere contact of their lips that he wondered if he could just keep on kissing Kurt for the rest of his life. He never wanted to pull away from those lips. _

"You have to make a good impression on this one, okay?" Al patted him on the shoulder pushing him towards where a man was standing with his back to them. "He's a real good journalist so make a good impression on him and your selling numbers will go right up."

"But I'm already doing good," Puck protested. He didn't like the idea of selling himself out just to get a good review. "I…"

"Look, just this once, do something my way?"

Puck held his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay."

"Kurt?"

Puck's eyes widened when that name left Al's mouth. "Wh…"

The man turned around and Puck could have recognized those blue eyes everywhere.

A soft smile curved familiar lips but those blazing blue eyes glanced at Al right away and Puck felt a knot tightening in his stomach. '_Of course he doesn't remember me anymore.'_

"This is my favorite one. I discovered him in Lima, Ohio of all places."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "You mentioned that a time or a hundred, Al."

Al patted Puck on the back again. "Well, I will leave you two alone then."

Puck just kept standing there staring and then Kurt turned to him, that same little nervous smile of that summer on his lips and Puck felt like it was going to be okay.

"Hey," Kurt said, stepping closer. "Al told me you were going to be here tonight and…" he trailed off shaking his head. "Why am I so stupid? I'm sorry, you probably don't remember…"

"Are you kidding me? Who forgets three months of his life just like that?" Puck found himself saying. "You…" He shook his head. "Of all places to meet again…"

Kurt laughed. "It makes sense, don't you think? The rock star and the music journalist."

"I can't believe it." Puck took a step closer, his eyes drifting up and down Kurt taking in all the changes, the shorter hair, the broader shoulders, and the familiar things like the confidence with which Kurt carried himself around, the shy smile and the sparkling eyes.

"Damn, you're hot," he said and Kurt laughed.

"You didn't change. I'm happy."

"I did. A little. I know who I am today."

"That's great."

Puck glanced around before stepping closer. "Can you maybe want to have dinner with me? Because I have been waiting years to meet you again. I went to your old house but…"

"Dad married again. He moved and I'm living on my own now."

"Of course." Puck frowned. "So, would it be okay if you had dinner with me?"

"Why wouldn't it be okay?" Kurt asked, the smile growing bigger and bigger on his face.

"Because you're a journalist and…"

"I'm very professional. I will make an honest review about your music."

"And you won't just say nice things to make me happy?"

Kurt shook his head. "You know me. I'm not easy to please."

"I still love it," Puck let slip out and when Kurt stepped closer, his arms sliding around his waist to hug him, Puck wasn't sorry at all.


End file.
